Good morning, CIOs. Under federal pressure to tighten the pharmaceutical supply chain and keep drugs from falling into the wrong hands, drug companies are ramping up experiments with promising but unproven blockchain technologies, CIO Journal’s Kim S. Nash reports. AmerisourceBergen Corp. and Merck & Co. Inc. plan to expand a test project completed last year that tracked the ownership of drugs moving through the health-care supply chain. The new test will increase the number of drugs and health-care devices and perform more complex transactions, said Dale Danilewitz, chief information officer at the drug distributor.

Amerisource wants to streamline the verification of drugs that a retailer or hospital returns to the company, Mr. Danilewitz told CIO Journal. Some returns can be resold if their history can be verified. “Blockchain is such a natural fit for that kind of capability,” he said.

Heather Zenk, senior vice president of strategic global sourcing at Amerisource, says more work must be done, though. To keep each company’s sensitive data protected, additional layers of protection are needed, Ms. Zenk said. That includes extra encryption to disguise sensitive data and coding safeguards during the writing of so-called smart contracts. “Blockchain could meet our challenges but out of the box, it doesn’t,” she said.

Mobile-phone malware is rising. blame spies. Spies are increasingly hacking into the smartphones of political opponents and dissidents around the world, security researchers tell the WSJ's Robert McMillan.

Driving the trend. The increase is being driven by the proliferation both of low-cost smartphones and of companies selling spyware and hacking tools to access them, Mr. McMillan writes.

Tactics. Victims are often tricked into downloading “Trojan horse” software that masquerades as a different program. But some attacks use techniques more sophisticated than malware. IPhone security flaws were exploited in a 2016 cyberattack against a human-rights activist in the United Arab Emirates.

The numbers. Close to 11% of mobile-phones world-wide had some sort of infection in the fourth quarter of 2017, McAfee said, up from about 7.5% during the same period of 2015.

City of Atlanta still feeling effects of March cyberattack. An Atlanta official this week proposed that the city dedicate an additional $9.5 million to recovery efforts following a March 22 ransomeware attack, Reuters reports. The attack took down an estimated 424 software programs including one-third of the apps the city deems "mission critical," Reuters says.

Drugs by robot. Companies like Eli Lilly & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC are investing in automation with the hope of transforming drug discovery into a 24/7 operation. The WSJ's Daniela Hernandez has more.

Snapshot: Lilly's San Diego research center. "In one installation, four glass-enclosed robotic arms grow cells, isolate DNA, and place samples into roughly postcard-sized plastic 'plates' that resemble miniature muffin trays. They also shuttle these between various equipment, like measuring machines and incubators."

Ker-plunk goes the data center. In the North Sea off the coast of the U.K.'s Orkney Islands, Microsoft Corp. is going deep--100 feet to be exact--with data. Quartz reports that the company is testing the benefits of underwater data centers, kept naturally cool in the chilly depths. BBC reports that the experiment, dubbed Project Natick, carries 12 racks of servers -- "enough room to store five million movies."

Virtual reality is going to be big, says latest report. No, really. PwC projects that by 2022, there will be 55 million VR headsets in the U.S. with media and entertainment applications of the technology generating $7.2 billion annually. Quartz puts that 55 million in perspective: "That’s as many headsets as there were paying Netflix members in the US at the end of March."

Qualcomm former CEO is starting a 5G company. Paul Jacobs, the former Qualcomm Inc. chief executive who was ousted as chairman of the chip maker’s board earlier this year, is launching a new startup, Xcom, focused on developing advanced wireless technology, the Journal's Ted Greenwald reports. The launch comes as Mr. Jacobs, the son of a Qualcomm co-founder, is also trying to buy the smartphone-chip specialist he once led—an effort widely viewed as a long shot.

IoT to the rescue of elephants, rhinos. Ars Technica reports on the tech (sensors, cameras, cloud) used by rangers to track the movement of people and animals in protected refuges. The goal is to cut down on the poaching that has devestated the populations of Africa's megafauna in recent years.

Coming up: Another EU ruling on Google dominance. The European Commission over the next couple weeks is expected to rule that Google engaged in noncompetitive business practices to promote its Android mobile platform. The FT has more.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

President Trump, heading into this weekend’s meeting of the Group of Seven nations, has signaled his intention to continue pursuing an aggressive trade agenda even if it comes at the expense of U.S. standing in the world. (WSJ)